she had made to him in the course of their married life. Having
satisfactorily eyed Mrs. Caresfoot off into a better world, her
husband gave up all idea of further matrimonial ventures, and set
himself to heap up riches. But a little before his wife's death, and
just after his son's birth, an event had occurred in the family that
had disturbed him not a little.

His father had left two sons, himself and a brother, many years his
junior. Now this brother was very dear to Mr. Caresfoot; his affection
for him was the one weak point in his armour; nor was it rendered any
the less sincere, but rather the more touching, by the fact that its
object was little better than half-witted. It is therefore easy to
imagine his distress and anger when he heard that a woman who had till
shortly before been kitchen-maid at the Abbey House, and was now
living in the village, had been confined of a son which she fixed upon
his brother, whose wife she declared herself to be. Investigation only
brought out the truth of the story; his weak-minded brother had been
entrapped into a glaring _mesalliance_.

But Mr. Caresfoot proved himself equal to the occasion. So soon as his
"sister-in-law," as it pleased him to call her sardonically, had
sufficiently recovered, he called upon her. What took place at the
visit never transpired, but next day Mrs. E. Caresfoot left her native
place never to return, the child remaining with the father, or rather
with the uncle. That boy was George. At the time when this story opens
both his parents were dead: his father from illness resulting from
entire failure of brain power, the mother from drink.

Whether it was that he considered the circumstance of the lad's birth
entitled him to peculiar consideration, or that he transferred to him